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Free Press Correspondent

Vermont-grown peaches

To be informed of weekly pick-your-own sessions for Shelburne Orchards’ peaches, which will take place about once a week as different varieties ripen through early September, find the orchard on Facebook or sign up for their email newsletter at www.shelburneorchards.com.

Peaches from Champlain Orchard in Shoreham can be bought at their farmstand and should be available through early September at local independent food markets.

Six easy peachy ideas:

• Make peach smoothies (and ice pops) Andrea Scott of Champlain Orchard likes to make smoothies with frozen peaches for her and Bill Suhr’s two-year-old son, Rupert. Lately she’s been combining homemade plain Jersey whole milk yogurt with the orchard’s own blackberries and peaches plus a banana, a dollop of coconut oil and some water. Any smoothie mixture that is left over, she suggests, can be frozen into homemade ice pops.

• Grill peaches Half and pit peaches leaving skin on. Brush with maple syrup and a little melted butter and grill, cut side down over medium heat until softened. Serve grilled peaches with vanilla ice cream or dollops of thick yogurt, a scattering of slivered basil and a drizzle of honey or maple syrup. Layer chopped, grilled peaches with grilled pound cake, softly whipped cream and minced crystallized ginger in parfait glasses or a large glass trifle bowl for an elegant company dessert.

• Salsa with a peach To go with grilled chicken, pork, fish or tofu, make a fresh peach salsa with diced red onion and cucumber, a squeeze of lime, minced hot pepper and fresh cilantro or mint. You can also use this combination as a base for a grain salad (quinoa, whole wheat couscous, wild rice) with a little olive oil and some slivered, toasted almonds tossed in.

• Float peaches in a drink Jen Smith of The Nomadic Oven enjoys sliced peaches in a glass of sangria. They’re also beautiful in a champagne or sparkling wine cocktail.

• Freeze them for tomorrow Slice peaches, cutting out any bruises and peeling, if desired. Lay on a lined cookie sheet to freeze individually. Move frozen slices to zippered plastic bags, carefully removing as much air as you can when you close them (some people use a plastic drinking straw) to reduce frost bite. These frozen peaches can go directly into smoothies or baked goods like cobblers and pies. (One of Shelburne Orchards’ customers suggests tossing the sliced peaches in a little white grape juice before freezing so that they don’t dry out, but this has not been a problem for me.)

• Just eat them already “Peach pie and cobbler are all great,” Nick Cowles of Shelburne Orchards said, “but the best is just sliced with a little cream, real cream.” Melissa Pasanen, Free Press correspondent

Six easy peachy ideas:

Make peach smoothies (and popsicles)Andrea Scott of Champlain Orchard likes to make smoothies with frozen peaches for her and Bill Suhr’s two-year-old son, Rupert. Lately she’s been combining homemade plain Jersey whole milk yogurt with the orchard’s own blackberries and peaches plus a banana, a dollop of coconut oil and some water. Any smoothie mixture that is left over, she suggests, can be frozen into homemade popsicles. Grill peachesHalf and pit peaches leaving skin on. Brush with maple syrup and a little melted butter and grill, cut side down over medium heat until softened. Serve grilled peaches with vanilla ice cream or dollops of thick yogurt, a scattering of slivered basil and a drizzle of honey or maple syrup. Layer chopped, grilled peaches with grilled pound cake, softly whipped cream and minced crystallized ginger in parfait glasses or a large glass trifle bowl for an elegant company dessert. Salsa with a peachTo go with grilled chicken, pork, fish or tofu, make a fresh peach salsa with diced red onion and cucumber, a squeeze of lime, minced hot pepper and fresh cilantro or mint. You can also use this combination as a base for a grain salad (quinoa, whole wheat couscous, wild rice) with a little olive oil and some slivered, toasted almonds tossed in.

Float peaches in a drinkJen Smith of The Nomadic Oven enjoys sliced peaches in a glass of sangria. They’re also beautiful in a champagne or sparkling wine cocktail. Freeze them for tomorrowSlice peaches, cutting out any bruises and peeling, if desired. Lay on a lined cookie sheet to freeze individually. Move frozen slices to zippered plastic bags, carefully removing as much air as you can when you close them (some people use a plastic drinking straw) to reduce frost bite. These frozen peaches can go directly into smoothies or baked goods like cobblers and pies. (One of Shelburne Orchards’ customers suggests tossing the sliced peaches in a little white grape juice before freezing so that they don’t dry out, but this has not been a problem for me.) Just eat them already“Peach pie and cobbler are all great,” Nick Cowles of Shelburne Orchards said, “but the best is just sliced with a little cream, real cream.” Melissa Pasanen, Free Press correspondent

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The variety names alone are enticing: Blushing Star, Flamin’ Fury and Garnet Beauty, to list just a few.

Match them up with the unexpected treasure of plump, rosy-skinned peaches picked fresh from a Vermont orchard and the lure is irresistible.

“When you have them, everybody loves you,” said Nick Cowles of Shelburne Orchards Tuesday morning as he stood by a lush green tree glowing with sunset-hued fruit.

Fifteen years ago, when Cowles planted the first peach trees among his 60 acres of apples, “The rule of thumb was that every three years you’d get a crop,” he recalled, “but the last three years we’ve had great peach crops every year.”

Peaches do not do well in years when temperatures dip below minus 18 to 20 degrees for any length of time, Cowles said, a common occurrence during a normal Vermont winter.

But, as both he and Bill Suhr of Champlain Orchard in Shoreham noted, weather trends are changing.

“We are aware of changing weather patterns and we are changing our growing habits,” said Suhr, who has invested in three acres of peach trees over the last three years leading up to his orchard’s first full crop this summer.

While Shelburne Orchards offers peaches from its 600 trees only on a pick-your-own basis one day a week through the season, Champlain Orchard sells through its own farmstand as well as the Intervale Food Hub and its usual retail outlets, including City Market, Shelburne Supermarket and Healthy Living.

“We have a nice crop this year, fairly significant,” said Suhr, whose business focuses on tree fruit, mostly apples but also pears along with peaches, nectarines, plums and sweet and sour cherries.

Part of the reason he made the bet on peaches, Suhr explained, was to bring in some summer cash flow before the apple season. He was also encouraged by the increasing availability of hardy varieties that withstand colder climates.

“We wanted to diversify, but we were not smart enough to diversify beyond agriculture,” he joked.

Champlain Orchard pampers its peaches, giving the 2,000 trees the best soil and the best topography on the 150-acre farm where they receive the most sun and are at the highest elevation for good drainage and air circulation, Suhr said. He is also growing them in a style of trellis that will create a canopy of branches.

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This year the yield is so good that the limbs are at risk of breaking. “We’ve been propping up branches with metal conduit,” he said.

This should be good news to peach-lovers, including local pastry chefs and bakers who appreciate the sweet, juicy fruit.

Kalle Fjeld, assistant pastry chef at the Inn at Shelburne Farms, saw her first local peaches about a month ago when David Miskell of Charlotte started bringing in his greenhouse-grown Saturn peaches. (Miskell’s harvest will be sold mostly direct to restaurants this year.)

Over the last couple of weeks, Fjeld and the Inn’s pastry chef, Sarah Auger, have gone themselves to pick peaches at Shelburne Orchards. It takes time away from the kitchen, Fjeld said, but she thinks it’s worth it.

“The more you are involved with the ingredient, the more excited you are and the more care you take with that ingredient,” she said.

Back in the kitchen, they roast the fruit in caramel and puree it for a roasted peach ice cream which they have served with peach turnovers and a sauce made with blueberries and sea berries, an unusual bush berry grown on the property. They also make a ginger-peach tart with brown butter filling to partner with a blackberry-balsamic creme brulee.

The pastry team also grills peach halves and then torches a crisp sugar topping on them. Those might be paired with a Tunisian-spiced chocolate-zucchini-peach cake with a mascarpone-whipped cream frosting, or with the peach ice cream drizzled with peach and raspberry caramels.

Jen Smith, baker-owner of The Nomadic Oven, a seasonal bakery with a popular stand at the summer Burlington Farmers Market, has also been picking peaches weekly since Shelburne Orchards’ pick-your-own started at the beginning of August.

Last Saturday, she offered individual peach and blackberry pies, peach puff tarts and peach and ginger scones. “I love combining peaches with components that have a little bit of bite, like sweet-tart blackberries or crystallized ginger,” she explained.

“When coming up with baking recipes for them, mostly I think my job is to not mess them up,” Smith said. “The flavor is so perfect to begin with, so sweet, that a minimalist approach is the best one.”

“I choose to pick my own fruit for baking because I love visiting farms, but also because knowing farmers, and harvesting fruit myself reminds me to approach my ingredients with respect,” Smith said. “Picking peaches at Shelburne Orchards has been a really wonderful part of this season, especially seeing how delighted the other visitors to the farm were.”

The pick-your-own day changes weekly at Shelburne Orchards dictated by the fruit, explained Cowles as he walked along a row giving his peaches a gentle squeeze. He checks them every morning to see how they’re ripening. As soon as they’re ready, he sends out an email alert and updates fans via Facebook.

He warns people to come at the beginning of each two-hour picking session. “There will be 60 cars waiting by the gate,” he said. “They get picked out. It’s like locusts coming through.”